Yoichi Sai

Yōichi Sai
Born	(1949-07-06) July 6, 1949 Nagano Prefecture, Japan
Occupation	Film director
Korean name
Hangul	최양일
Hanja	崔洋一
Revised Romanization	Choe Yang-il
McCune–Reischauer	Ch'oe Yang'il

Yōichi Sai (崔 洋一, Sai Yōichi, born 6 July 1949 in Nagano Prefecture) is a Japanese film director. His mother is Japanese and his father is Zainichi Korean. He is the president of the Directors Guild of Japan.

Career

Sai won the Best Screenplay award at the 11th Yokohama Film Festival for A Sign Days.

In 1999 he shot The Pig's Retribution, a film set in the lavish natural scenery of Okinawa, inspired by the 1996 Akutagawa Prize-winning eponymous novel by Eiki Matayoshi. The film won the Don Quixote prize at the Locarno International Film Festival in 1999.

Sai directed Blood and Bones, a film starring Takeshi Kitano. He has also directed films such as Marks, Doing Time, Quill, Soo, and Kamui Gaiden.

As an actor, Sai appeared in Nagisa Oshima's 1999 film Taboo and Masahiko Nagasawa's 2003 film The Thirteen Steps.

Sai's 2004 film Blood and Bones won four Japanese Academy Awards, including two for Sai himself, for Best Director and Best Screenplay. He had previously received two nominations in the same categories for All Under the Moon.

Filmography

As director

• Mosquito on the 10th Floor (1983)
• Sex Crime (1983)
• Someone Will Be Killed (1984)
• Let Him Rest in Peace (1985)
• Kuroi Doresu no Onna (1987)
• Hana no Asuka-gumi! (1988)
• A Sign Days (1989)
• All Under the Moon (1993)
• Marks (1995)
• Heisei Musekinin Ikka: Tokyo Deluxe (1995)
• Dog Race (1998)
• The Pig's Retribution (1999)
• Doing Time (2002)
• Blood and Bones (2004)
• Quill (2004)
• Soo (2007)
• Kamui Gaiden (2009)

As actor

• Taboo (1999)
• The Thirteen Steps (2003)

External links

• Yoichi Sai at the Internet Movie Database
• Yoichi Sai at the Japanese Movie Database (Japanese)